Current methods of applying graphics to sporting good items are typically very labor intensive and, as a result, relatively costly. Silk-screening, for example, is a method prevalently used to apply graphics to a multitude of sporting good items, such as ball bats, hockey shafts, and so forth. Silk-screening requires an operator to separately apply each color of ink or paint used to label the item or product. Many products may include two or more colors, while several high-end products may include 3 or more colors. To provide high quality graphics, precise aligning and registering of each color image is required. Registration of each color image is particularly challenging and generally increases product costs, not only because of the difficult labor required to properly register the color images but also due to reduced acceptable yields. Thus, the process of labeling a sporting good item can be very labor intensive, inefficient, and expensive.
An additional complication arises when applying graphics to tapered or contoured products, such as ball bats having varying diameters. The change in diameter of tapered products makes it extremely difficult to maintain image clarity and to align and register multiple images. The use of silk-screening on highly tapered products, such as ball bats, generally limits the effective size of a logo or other graphics to a narrow range of diameters, since the image otherwise skids or slips at the lower end or upper end of the taper. In general, the diameter of the largest section of a silk-screen graphic cannot vary by more than 5 to 7% from the diameter of the smallest section of the graphic before the graphic image becomes distorted. The percentage difference between the largest diameter (approximately 2.25″) and the smallest diameter (approximately 0.81″) of a typical softball bat, however, is approximately 64%. For typical baseball bats, this percentage is approximately 68% (difference between an approximately 0.88″ handle and an approximately 2.75″ barrel). This dramatic difference in diameters greatly limits the potential effective length of a shrink-wrap graphic on a ball bat or other tapered product.
To overcome some of the shortcomings associated with silk-screening graphics onto sporting good items, decals have been increasingly used to apply these types of graphics. Decals cost-effectively increase the resolution, number of colors, and, in many cases, the possible length of the graphics as compared to traditional silk-screening methods. The decals are typically made using medium to high volume printing methods (e.g., flexor, gravure, digital printing, or even silk-screening for lower production volumes), which increase the potential for lower cost and higher quality graphics.
On highly contoured or highly tapered products, such as ball bats, manual labor is typically required to apply decal labels, since automated application equipment has not proven to be effective at applying decals to highly contoured products. This increased manual labor somewhat offsets the cost savings associated with using decals instead of silk-screening applications, particularly since decals applied to impact items generally require additional protection from abrasion and chipping. This additional protection is typically provided by a durable clear coat, such as a coating of polyurethane, applied to an outer surface of the decal. Nonetheless, the use of decals typically reduces the cost of applying graphic labels to sporting good items by approximately 25 to 40% of the cost associated with applying graphics via traditional silk-screening methods.
FIG. 1 illustrates a ball bat 10 including a typical decal 12 applied to an outer surface of the body of the ball bat 10 via a layer of paint 14. A layer of clear coat 16 is applied to an outer surface of the decal 12. The decal 12 terminates at an end portion 18 such that it covers only a portion of the tapered region 20 of the ball bat 10. The decal 12 does not extend to the handle region 22 of the ball bat 10. Applying decals in such a manner is common since it is typically difficult to effectively apply decals over a substantial portion of the highly contoured or tapered portions of the ball bat 10.
While the use of decals provides cost savings relative to traditional silk-screening methods, decals still have shortcomings. For instance, decals are not particularly durable, and manual labor is typically required to apply decals to irregularly shaped items, such as ball bats. Moreover, due to the contours or tapers present in these irregularly shaped items, decals typically cannot be effectively applied substantially over the entire length of the items. Thus, a need exists for improved methods for applying graphics or labels to sporting good items or other impact items in an efficient, cost-effective manner.